Spotted Cow and Fried Cheese Curds
The Uniqueness of Place
I chose Milwaukee because I had never been to Wisconsin. I had heard about the near-mythical status of Spotted Cow, a beer brewed in New Glarus and sold only within the state’s borders. Perhaps, most importantly, I had made myself a promise, one of those small, private promises that quietly shape a life, to finally visit Wisconsin before my nephew’s wedding. That was enough. Sometimes curiosity doesn’t need a better justification.
"Greetings from MKE" mural, W. Florida Street, Walkers Point, Milwaukee (Michael Holland)
I arrived that winter, just before New Year’s Eve, when Milwaukee is unapologetically itself. It was cold in a way that doesn’t flirt with you or pretend otherwise. The kind of cold that forces intention: you either commit to being outside, or you don’t. I found a funky apartment in Walker’s Point, one of those off-season discoveries that reward traveling when everyone else has decided to stay home. Not far from the Iron Horse Hotel and, reasonably speaking, not too far from the Historic Third Ward. The streets were quieter. The city felt less like it was performing.
I walked everywhere. Well, almost everywhere. Yes, even in the Milwaukee cold. Past old brick warehouses converted into lofts. I had done my research, plotted pins on a Google My Map before arriving, something I do before every place I travel. The Harley-Davidson Museum. The Milwaukee Art Museum. The Pabst Mansion. The Basilica of Saint Josaphat. A Milwaukee Bucks game. And, of course, the Milwaukee Public Market, where locals moved with purpose and tourists lingered with uncertainty.
Somewhere along the way, without planning to, I kept passing the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum. Serendipity. It wasn’t something I’d researched or marked in advance. It was simply there, appearing again and again on my route, until I finally gave in and went inside. That’s how Milwaukee worked on me: less persuasion, more persistence.
Another unexpected doorway into the city came through a friend of a friend. A version of the city that only locals tend to share. The first was Bryant’s Cocktail Lounge, Milwaukee’s oldest cocktail lounge: low light, velvet walls, no menu, and brilliantly talented bartenders who ask questions about what you like instead of taking orders. Gin for me. Trust required. Participation expected. Another reminder that some places don’t exist to be optimized; they exist to be experienced.
The second was Holler House, owned by the Skowronski family since 1908, the oldest sanctioned tenpin bowling alley in America. It’s two bowling lanes, still tended by human pinsetters. I even met Cathy Haefke (née Skowronski). One part owner. One part historian.
Holler House, Milwaukee’s historical Polish South Side (Michael Holland)
To this day, Milwaukee always reminds me that every place I go to live has its own version of Spotted Cow and fried cheese curds. Whether it’s Chicago and deep-dish pizza loyalties to Giordano’s or Lou Malnati’s. New Haven’s friendly competition between the “Holy Trinity” of thin-crust pizza places: Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana, Sally’s Apizza, and Modern Apizza. El Paso has Chico’s Tacos that sparks fierce debates. Cincinnati has Skyline Chili, and, my favorite, the breweries in Over-the-Rhine, like Rhinegeist Brewery, rising from old industrial bones. These small, fiercely defended details become a kind of cultural shorthand, a way people recognize their own.
And the final lesson Milwaukee gave me in traveling the way I do was about presence. It arrived disguised as an inconvenience.
On my last night in town, what I would characterize as a blizzard rolled in. The kind of storm that makes you reconsider every choice that led you to this exact moment. I realized I didn’t have any food at my apartment. So, I had three options, none particularly appealing: walk about 2 miles to the grocery store through snow and wind; order delivery and ask someone else to risk life and limb on my behalf; or walk about 500 yards to Black Sheep MKE, one of the few places still open.
I chose the bar.
The walk over felt longer than it was, even though I was prepared in my new boots from Milwaukee Boot Company. I remember thinking, not entirely joking, that if I slipped and fell and knocked myself out, no one might find me until morning. And when I reached the door, I wondered who else could possibly be out in weather like this.
Struggling against the wind to open the front door, I found my answer. Plenty of people, it turned out.
Inside, the bar was warm, loud, and alive. The looks I got said everything: Here’s another one. Another person who decided that staying home wasn’t the point. I took a seat and stayed. For hours. Six, well maybe seven until they closed. Drinking. Eating. Talking. Listening. Making friends. The storm howled outside while a small, temporary community formed inside, people swapping stories, laughing at the absurdity of being there, making the night something worth remembering. No one was in a hurry to leave.
That was Milwaukee for me.
Not the landmarks or the list of things I did, but that night, unexpected, unplanned, deeply human. A reminder that place isn’t something you consume. It’s something you enter into. And if you’re willing to slow down, to be present, to accept what a city offers rather than demand what you expect, it will meet you halfway.
Sometimes with a pint of Spotted Cow. Sometimes with a basket of fried cheese curds. And sometimes, on a night when you almost stayed in, with a bar full of strangers who make you feel, just for a while, as if you belong.
Originally published on Substack on January 28, 2026.
